The Royal Chef At Home: Easy Seasonal Entertaining

O ur local farmer's market is held in the high school parking lot on Saturday morn ings and by 8 AM there is a long line of impatient drivers trying to get a prime parking spot. Not everyone has had their coffee (including me), and there are more than a few grumpy shoppers (again, guilty). But at a farmer’s market I am like a kid in a toy store. Getting my hands on gorgeous local apples or better yet, late season ripe figs, mellows my mood and just makes me happier. If you don’t regularly check out your local farmer’s market, I’mhere to encourage you to do so. The vendors are happy to be there, you will run into a neighbor who has some juicy gossip (and who doesn’t like that?), and the produce for sale is worthy of the fine brush of a French impressionist painter. It is really a beautiful sight, and I always end up buying too much. So what to do with all those beautiful vegetables? There are soups to be made, salads, platters of roasted vegetables or just sliced up and munched raw for snacking. The list is long. In this menu I’ve included a delicious fall take on bruschetta and a warm vegetable salad that is flexible enough to take advantage of the all the perfectly ripe veggies you find at the market. I think these are the perfect kinds of dishes to feed a family or serve to a friend, proving definitively that you don’t need meat at the center of the plate for every meal. There is a growing “meatless Monday” movement across the United States, and I, a true meat lover, know that vegetables keep me and those I love happy and healthy. I can support that. VEGGIES FROM THE FARMER’S MARKET

115 FALL · VEGGIES FROM THE FARMER’S MARKET